


Lovelace's Guide To Surviving Your Civil Trial

by badskeletonpuns



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/F, Lesbians, No Sex, i am going to single-handedly double the amount of minlace fanfic i swear, les-be-in-love, lovelace's trial, minlace, post-hephaestus au, the great improbable porn battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 00:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6881524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Subtitled, “A Foolproof List of Ways to Not Have a Panic Attack at Your Own Trial”, by Captain Isabel Lovelace.<br/>My fill for smilodon for the Great Improbable Porn Battle 2K16! Minlace, at/directly after Lovelace's trial when they are back on earth. Featuring second person future tense, quips that are easier than feelings, and about a billion dust motes.<br/>I worked very, very, hard on getting this tense right, guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lovelace's Guide To Surviving Your Civil Trial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smilodonmeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilodonmeow/gifts).



“A Foolproof List of Ways to Not Have a Panic Attack at Your Own Trial”

by Captain Isabel Lovelace

•Ask yourself, ‘Why the hell are you here?’ Consider going home.

•Let Minkowski remind you how hard you've worked to turn this case around from Goddard blaming you for negligence _( **negligence** , they say, like you just misplaced Fourier or you could have cured Hui or you should have dragged yourself out into that meteor shower to pull Fisher inside yourself, like Selberg didn't systematically murder everyone you cared about)_, to placing the blame on those bastards for your murdered crew. They definitely deserve it. 

•Don't go home.

•Don't think about the letters that were never delivered.

•Don't think about how easily Goddard had you disappeared and how easy it would be for them to do so again. You are Captain Isabel Lovelace, and you are the _scariest goddamn thing_ these people have ever seen.

•Don't be afraid. You're a big girl. 

•Ignore the buzzing anxiety that tenses your shoulders, leaves you with an electric metal aftertaste and makes all the lights in the room seem brighter than they were two seconds ago.

•Minkowski will ignore your previous advice and will definitely pick up on the way that your shoulders tense and how the sallow undertones on your face are not just caused by the aforementioned lighting. She'll be standing beside you, murmuring reassuring phrases into your ear like _it’s going to be okay, Eiffel and I are with you, they deserve every bit of evidence we’re going to slam them with, we will rain fire and brimstone on Goddard’s corporate offices and dance on the ashes,_ and you guess she must know you pretty well at this point because even now that last statement makes you smile. 

•She’s damn right, you are going to dance on their ashes.

•You’ll take a deep breath, and step forward when they call your name. 

•The trial itself will pass like what little you remember from your time in cryosleep: both slow and fast at the same time. 

•(The air slides through your lungs like liquid nitrogen, and _you are so cold_.) 

•Your testimony is by no means brief, but you’ll hardly remember any of it. Afterwards, Minkowski will tell you that you were solemn, but that your voice stayed steady and your eyes stayed strong. Eiffel will talk about how the Black Widow released Hydra’s files to the public and how you were literally the Black Widow in real life. 

•Strike a pose, and tell him there's no way you aren't Wonder Woman.

•Let him pull you into a debate about DC versus Marvel until Minkowski says she's never seen movies from either and you and Eiffel both turn and gasp as the three of you walk out of the emptied courtroom.

•Minkowski will catch your arm. “You go on ahead, Eiffel,” she’ll say to him, “We’ll catch up.”

•Minkowski will look into your eyes and you will understand why Eiffel would probably follow her into literal hell. 

•(You think maybe you'd be right behind him.)

•Her hand will remain on your arm, her skin hot where it touches yours and warm even through the fabric of your shirt. The courtroom is huge and empty aside from you and Commander Minkowski and about a billion dust motes. 

•(You think, _maybe_.)

•Minkowski will eventually notice the way you’re staring at her and not actually saying anything. That is unfortunately inevitable, because staring at Minkowski is a far easier course of action than actually talking about your feelings. She will remove her hand and uncharacteristically stumble over her words of apology, of personal boundaries and professional distance. 

•(You will immediately miss the heat of her skin.)

•She will rub the back of her neck (the same way she did hundreds of times on the Hephaestus, because some things never change), and you will realize how hard it is for her to keep smiling. Sometimes you forget, you were all in that nightmare together. Minkowski may not have had her entire crew die, but she came damn close. And at least you knew that you had no one to come home to.

She had to find that out the hard way. 

•You will feel the need to say something. “Need anything, Minkowski? Or could you not wait until we were home to be alone, _honey bunches __?” you will quip. Ask yourself why quips are so much easier than feelings._

•You won’t be able to come up with any satisfactory answers and Minkowski will look at you like you are a particularly strange mess that Eiffel made while trying to cook something; she is exhausted and confused but also strangely fascinated.

You will be strangely turned on by the look. 

(This is probably payback for that time you locked Hui and Fourier into a supply closet and left them to figure out their emotions for a few hours.) 

•“Are you okay?” she will ask you, softer than you’ve ever heard her sound. She will wait for you to respond, and you will wait for her to do something, anything.

Neither of you will do anything, and the air in the courtroom will be heavy with the tension sitting like a smug cat between the two of you. Even the dust motes will seem to slow their spirals through the air in anticipation.

•(You think that you waited for months for Goddard to save you, you waited for months for your crew to die or betray you, you waited for years in cryo, and you are done with all this goddamned waiting.)

•Take Minkowski’s arm; give her a taste of her own arm-touching emotions-inducing medicine.

•Pull her into a kiss.

•Her lips will be hotter than her hands, already flushed pink and so soft against your own.

•When you sigh her name into her mouth she will pull you closer, and it will feel like coming out of cryo: an overwhelming blast of heat and emotion, almost a painful shock after cryo's steady cold void. All things considered, you will feel an awful lot like Han Solo after getting melted out of carbonite.

You always were jealous he got to kiss Carrie Fisher. 

•Minkowski will make a small, breathless sound when you brush your lips against her neck and you will quickly stop thinking about Carrie Fisher in favor of thinking up ways to make Minkowski make that noise again and again. 

•You will stop thinking at all when she literally lifts you up and sets you on the table that the court recorder had been taking notes on, as easily as if you were still in zero-g and you weighed nothing at all.

Whatever. Thinking was never one of your top priorities anyway. 

“Isabel,” Minkowski will murmur into your ear, and you will close your eyes and feel.

**Author's Note:**

> here are your lesbians, smilo! hope you enjoyed them and the freaky deaky tense shenanigans.


End file.
